


Sorta Fairytale

by beforethecalm



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beforethecalm/pseuds/beforethecalm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Caroline can’t be a Mom.  Aside from the whole undead-thing?  She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body.  She kills goldfish, for crying out loud, didn’t Mom ever tell him that story? <br/>Disclaimer:  They belong to Plec, Williamson, et al.  I just play with them.<br/>Authors Notes:  Yep.  It’s that kind of fic.  Pregnant!Caroline-fic.  Set 10 years in the future.  Rated Teen and up for a couple of bad words (Caroline swears like a sailor; she's not even sorry.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorta Fairytale

Caroline Forbes is 28 years old in love with her best friend and living with him in Richmond when the wacky happens.  They moved out of Mystic Falls two years after Klaus upped and left, decided that it was better for everyone if they weren’t so wrapped up in the towns events and found a decent-sized house, a place to call home just a short ride away which her Mom takes total advantage of every other weekend now she’s not Sheriff any more.

That’s the short version.  The long version involves heartache and people dying and Caroline discovering, through months of living with her vampire-sponsor and literal best friend that she loved him, which was a slow-burn of awkward until she realized that he loved her too.

Stuff happened, people got hurt and Caroline and Stefan decided that, actually?  It was time to be a little selfish.  And so they left.

First?  They traveled.  Stefan showed her the world and then some and when Caroline was done with the whole around-the-world-in-365-days thing she suggested that maybe they could put down roots somewhere.

Stefan, for his part, was as good as his word.  Bought them a house with his vast Salvatore riches and they worked their way into jobs befitting of their lifestyle now.  Everything was good, awesome even.

And then Caroline got sick.

Stefan nearly goes out of his mind.  He calls Bonnie who promises to help even though she’s got her own hands full with, like, four mini-Gilberts running around.  Even calls Damon, who scoffs down the phone and asks if he’s sure.  Stefan growls at that and it takes Caroline all her time to wrench the phone out of his hand to talk to Elena.

"I’m okay, Elena, seriously," she promises, though from the circles under her eyes, it’s clear she’s not.  Next morning?  She forces a smile on her face and tells him everything’s fine ( _I’m fine, Stefan.  I’m not girly little Caroline any more, I can take care of myself)_ before heading out to work.  She visits a doctor which is sort of insane in one respect (‘cause hello, _dead_ , or undead if you wanna get all technical about it) but totally sane in another because Caroline compels him into ignoring the fact that she’s not like other humans and tells him to run every test imaginable.

Which he does. 

Caroline is beyond not ready for the results.

"I’m—"

"Pregnant, yes," he fills in the blanks for her, smiles.  And that is when Caroline totally starts to hyperventilate.

——-

She hasn’t even gotten used to the idea herself so when Stefan comes home and finds Caroline there before him (never happens, because that usually means she has to cook) he thinks something is seriously wrong.

"Caroline?"

She’s cried for the last hour because this?  Is beyond fucked up.  Caroline can’t be a Mom.  Aside from the whole undead-thing?  She doesn’t have a maternal fucking bone in her body.  She kills goldfish, for crying out loud, didn’t Mom ever tell him that story? 

"I have something to tell you," she murmurs carefully and Stefan clasps both of her hands in his, braces herself for the total worst as she whispers, "I’m pregnant" and… Stefan looks as bewildered as her.

"What?"

"I’m pregnant," she whispers again.  "Knocked up.  Carrying spawn-ala-Salvatore."  And she’s officially run out of ways to describe the trouble they’re both in.

"But—But how?"  His gaze is sort of… Weird.  Like, full-of-wonderment-weird and no— _No_.

"What, you want me to draw you a diagram?"  Caroline lifts a hand and clicks it in front of Stefan’s face, "Hello.  Earth to Broody here; I’m a _**vampire**_.”  She hooks her fingers over into claws, even does the Grrr-effect, lest he forgot in the last twenty minutes, “I can’t _get_ pregnant, remember?”  Someone is messing with us.  Some witchy, _let’s-knock-up-Caroline-and-totally-freak-her-out-in-the-process_ juju or something.  We need to call Bonnie.”

——-

They call Bonnie who promptly squeals down the phone before actual sense kicks in and she realizes that Caroline?  Cannot get pregnant.  Vampires don’t procreate, they just don’t.  No ifs, ands, buts or maybe’s.

Then, of course, Caroline really freaks because what if it’s a _Twilight_ thing and this baby is totally going to eat her from the inside out?  She saw that movie and Kristen Stewart did _**not**_ look pleasant.

"Caroline, breathe," Bonnie tells her firmly.  "I’ll be there in two hours."

Bonnie is as good as her word and then some.  She doesn’t bring alcohol but she does bring chocolate and clasps her best friend in a warm hug as she walks through the door.  Then?  She starts running her own witch-y tests.

It turns out?  That Bonnie can’t find anything mystical about it.  It’s a baby, alright, a real, live _human_ baby and—Caroline freaks again.  She’s mentioned she doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body, right?

Bonnie leaves them alone for a minute and Stefan sits beside her, his hands cup her cheeks and she is reminded, suddenly, of that moment back in the bathroom what feels like a gazillion years ago where Stefan promised _I won’t let anything happen to you._   He totally fucking lied.  “It’s gonna be okay.”

"How is this gonna be okay, Stefan?  I kill goldfish!  Didn’t you ever wonder why I didn’t have a pet?"

He laughs at that and Caroline’s gaze turns dark.  He is _**so**_ in the doghouse.

——-

He remains in the doghouse until her first scan whereupon they find out they’re having a girl and Caroline hears, for the very first time, their baby’s heartbeat.  She counts ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes and suddenly?  Stefan’s not in the doghouse any more and Caroline is, dare she say it, _happy_.

——-

She gets fat.  No, really?  She gets fat.  Her appetite, already raging, intensifies (hello, eating for two here) and when Damon laughs at her for waddling, suggests she might wanna lay off on the snack-food?  She throws a book at his head, tells him that when she’s back to normal she’s going to shove a stake up his ass.  Like, literally.

Damon and Elena head home and Caroline levers herself onto the sofa beside Stefan feeling kind of exhausted.  She’s got a couple of weeks left to go but this baby?  Is seriously fucking impatient and never still.  She thinks it’s gonna come out waving its tiny baby finger about why it wasn’t let out sooner or something.

Which leads her to the really scary part.  The Having of the Actual Baby.  Caroline is terrified.  No, _really_.  She’s read every baby book in the world trying to prepare herself but she still cannot shake the feeling of impending doom that she’s gonna suck as a Mom.

Stefan, of course, can read her like a book.  “What’s wrong?”

"What?  Nothing."  Caroline says, but her eyes shift to the left and she was a little too quick in answering that and she sighs because— _Busted_.  “I was just… Thinking we should maybe go over the hospital route one more time.”

He arches an eyebrow at that, “You are a terrible liar.  We’ve been over the hospital route a thousand times and then some.”

"We still haven’t picked out a name."

"Caroline," his voice is soft but heeds a warning because Stefan?  Is so not letting this go.

Caroline’s head falls back against the back of the sofa and she sighs, “Stefan, what if I suck as a Mom?”  She hears the opening of his mouth as he goes to answer and launches into her own reasoning first, lifts her head again to look at him, “No, _seriously_ , Stefan, what if I suck?  I’m inappropriate, I still _always_ say the wrong thing and I don’t have a maternal freakin’ bone in my body.  Aunt Caroline?  Is awesome.  Aunt Caroline is fun and totally the Go-To-Girl when you need a fake ID or whatever… Mom’s don’t do that.  Mom’s are supposed to be responsible and, like, pay bills on time and I almost defaulted on our phone-bill ‘cause I got waylaid by a pair of shoes.  _Shoes_ , Stefan.”  Her voice rises in pitch with each argument, “What if I default on our baby?  What if I… What if I leave her in a store somewhere ‘cause I get waylaid by a nice scarf or something an—”

Soft hands framing her face bring her back to earth and Caroline’s breath hitches as Stefan places a gentle kiss on her lips.

"Caroline, you are not going to suck as a Mom.  And you are not going to default on our baby."

"You can’t know that."  Caroline’s earlier panic remains steadfast and though she really doesn’t need to, she has to force herself to breathe, "What, are you psychic all of a sudden?  You’re ready for this, Stefan.  You’ve spent 170 years being ready and you’re gonna be perfect."

The corners of his lips tug upwards and Stefan shakes his head, “You think I’m ready for this?  This is, by far, the scariest thing I’ve ever contemplated doing in my life.  I don’t feel ready at all but… I know that we’ll love this baby.  I know that _you’ll_ love this baby and whatever faults you think you may have?  They won’t matter because… It’ll be enough.  Isn’t that what you told me?  That love is enough, always?”

Caroline’s nose wrinkles as she stares at him, “I hate when you do that.”

He gives her an innocent look, “What?”

"Oh, don’t even try with the innocent.  You know what I’m talking about," Caroline murmurs, rolling her eyes.

She’s talking about him using every wise thing she’s ever tried to say back against her. 

He’s talking about the last time he fell off the Ripper-shaped-edge, when Caroline found him with his humanity in tatters, two dead guys at his feet and she told him it was okay, that she loved him and that it would be enough to get him through this again, _always_.

Of course, that over-romanticizes it all because the very next moment?  Caroline was pulling a ghost-Lexi and slamming his stupid head into a wall.  It took her three weeks to convince him to turn his humanity back on and involved a lot of Stefan being chained to a chair and Damon helping in his own inimitable way.

"You’re going to be fine," Stefan repeats and Caroline is just starting to think she maybe believes him when a short, sharp, excruciating pain tears its way across her stomach.

——

Caroline Forbes is no stranger to torture.  She’s been tied up with vervain ropes, had sunlight danced across her back by her very own father (and actual, much-loved history teacher - RIP Ric) but the pain is _nothing_ like this.  Nothing.

She grits her teeth between contractions and glares at Stefan and vows that he will be touching her again _never_.

He seems to accept this, even nods, but that just makes Caroline madder than she’s ever been in her unnatural life and she goes to tell him so but then—Another contraction, shorter this time but no less painful.

"It’s time to start pushing," the Nurse tells her cheerfully and Caroline decides that if Stefan loved her like he said he loved her, he’d do something really useful with his unlife and smack the cheerful right out of her.

She’s had every drug imaginable but fuck vampire constitution, fuck the Nurse and fuck, fuck, fuck the pain because the drugs don’t even touch it and _it hurts, it hurts_ and Caroline would give her right freakin’ arm for a bottle of Damon’s strongest bourbon to dull it right now.  “You push,” she snarls, “I’m the one doing all the fucking work here.”

Stefan looks like he’s seen a ghost, apologizes profusely as Caroline’s head snaps back with another contraction and he should probably thank his lucky stars that she didn’t see the Nurse give him a knowing smile because Caroline totally would have shoved his head through a wall again.

She’s in labor a grand total of seven hours and twenty-six minutes and they don’t even consider that _long_.  It feels like an eternity.

The Nurse tells her to push one final time and it takes Caroline all her time not to lift her right leg instead and kick her out the room.  One push is all it takes though and Caroline drops back against the bed, startled and exhausted as she hears a tiny cry.  She hauls herself up on her elbows, breathing heavily and there, in the Nurse’s arms while Stefan cuts the cord is a baby.  Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes.  Caroline’s breath hitches.

They give her a couple of minutes before they have to spirit the baby away and Caroline looks down in awe as the Nurse places her in the crook of Caroline’s arm.  “Is that… Is she really ours?”  Caroline whispers and maybe the drugs did work because she sounds kinda high right now.  “She’s so tiny.”

Stefan wraps an arm around her shoulder, places a soft kiss to the curls matted to her head and smiles, looking glazed and happy and tired, like he’s just gone through the most excruciating pain of his life, not her.

"She needs a name," Stefan tells her after a beat.

Caroline looks down at their daughter.  There’s a part of her that still feels scared, still uncertain but… There’s something else between them now, new life - a baby, theirs - and Caroline is kind of in awe at that.  A host of feelings slam her at once and Caroline wonders if all women feel like this when they’ve just had a baby or whether it’s just _hi, vampire, heightened emotions_.

She vows that she will love this baby now, forever, always.  She vows that she will protect this baby with ten billion times the tenacity she fought for her friends.  It’s not going to be easy and a distant memory tickles at the back of her subconscious - _parents shouldn’t outlive their children, Caroline_.  One day, years in the future, their child will cease to be and Caroline thinks — no, Caroline _knows_ — that part of them will die with her but… That’s not today and Caroline is nothing if not the girl who lives for the moment.  
  
She doesn’t have all the answers, maybe she never will but isn’t that what Mom always said? Being a Mom was hands down, the scariest thing on the planet, and sometimes, yes, she sucked at it. But she tried and Caroline, despite death (her own and other people’s) and every odd stacked against her … She turned out okay.  She turned out better than that, she turned into someone her Mom could be proud of and there is honestly no finer accolade than that.  
  
She thinks of all the ways their lives are going to change now there’s a baby in the mix. She thinks of how, for months, she dreaded this moment with all the apprehension a new Mom could muster and then she looks at Stefan and their baby and suddenly? It’s okay. All of it.  
  
They’re going to be fine.  
  
They call her Beth. Lexi was considered, right along with Jenna, but there are enough ghosts between them, they don’t need to add another.  
  
They get her home and Caroline does stupid, cliched things like watching her breathe and watching her sleep and _smelling_ her and being left in awe of the tiny pitter-patter of her heart. Her own heart swells every time she looks at her and Stefan just smiles as he walks up behind her, folds her into the circle of his arms. 

They painted the nursery light pink, stenciled the walls with Disney Princesses (thanks Jeremy) even though she’s too young to understand that her Mom (28-years-old and all creature-of-the-night-y) still believes in Fairytales.

Who wouldn’t when she’s living one of her very own?

~FIN~


End file.
